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Monday, 6 October 2014

15 Struggles of Having Acne

Acne is a popular word around these parts aka this blog. It makes up around 80% of my moans and groans. It seems like my skin is having the time of its life as it goes through puberty... while the rest of my body is stuck in time; stunted height and a baby face to boot. I've tried almost every lotion and potion in the book, I cry when I watch "How to Cover Up Acne" videos and the Youtuber literally has the tiniest of spots. My life has become a desolate cloud that is ruled by acne (which I'm pretty sure is a spawn of the devil). Dramatics aside, as someone who battles acne on a daily basis, I wanted to share just a 'few' comments er, rants that I hope some of you can relate to.1. You die a little on the inside every time you have to wear makeup.

Basically, acne and makeup is like a cycle of death. Obviously the best way to clear up acne is to try not to pile stuff on top of it, but some of us just needs the extra coverage to make it out the door. But then wearing makeup leads to poorer skin, which leads to acne, which leads to MORE makeup to cover it, and then MORE acne etc... which leads to point number 2.

2. You feel insecure without makeup.

When you look like you've got the measles, or even just one huge bump saying 'Hi' to the world, it can be hard to feel completely confident and even beautiful without the help of makeup. It's quite sad actually.

3. It takes twice as long to put on makeup because you need to carefully spot conceal.

I still need to master this, but do you know howfreaking hard it is to conceal a breakout? Not only are they red, but they protrude out of the skin, so you need to conceal on and around and then delicately blend the edges. It's an art. And I was never good at art.

4. Foundation/Powder just looks gross.

So now you've carefully concealed the spot. Guess what? It looks disgusting because all the foundation/powder has just congregated and gone patchy around the area in the most unflattering way possible. I can't tell you how many times I've had to remove my base and start again because it just looked HORRIBLE.

5. When you do wear makeup, you feel like it's clogging your pores.

Similar to point number 1. I cringe whenever I put on foundation because I can hear my pores crying and know I probably won't be waking up the next morning with better skin.

6. It hurts when you touch your face.

I'm referring to cystic acne, your worst nightmare. Oh how I despise those nasty, under the skin cysts that physically hurt. Once, it even got to the point where it hurt to smile. And they are a pain in the behind to get rid of.

7. They can take forever to clear up.

I notice a pattern in my acne, where they come and multiply like ants but then take weeks or even months to clear up. And while they're taking their own sweet time to disappear, more of their friends come along and hey, you're plagued with even more spots. *cries and buries self in a hole*

8. Once they're gone, they leave a scar.

As someone with fair skin, scars and dark red marks are inevitable after a spot has (finally) gone away. But give me scars any day! They are so much easier to cover up then a raised pimple.

9. You're familiar with almost every spot treatment that's available.

It took me a long time to find a spot treatment that worked and stayed that way. Of course through the process, I got to know MANY creams/gels on the shelves and have been disappointed by many.

10. You spend a lot of time examining your face in the mirror.

You wake up and rush to the mirror in hopes that at least one has disappeared. You often run your hands over your own face to see if the bumps are still there (they are).

11. When you do wear makeup, you take lots of selfies.

Makeup. Your skin now looks perfect! Out comes the camera and a bunch of selfies of you in your flawless skin state. It's a rare sight so we have to document it.

12. You try not to pop them but you do it anyway.

Don't lie to yourself, we all do it. It's bad, and we shouldn't but sometimes squeezing all the pus out is the fastest way to get rid of the stupid pimple. Of course, the scar left behind is even darker and angrier but oh well.

If I had a dollar for every time someone has said this to me, I would be rich enough to afford laser treatment to get rid of ALL my acne. Believe it or not, acne-sufferers are usually religious face-cleaners and are concerned a lot about skincare. So I really dislike it when people assume we are 'dirty' and that's why we have acne.

15. You get people who point out your acne.

"You have something on your face." Oh don't mind it, that's just my best friend acne. It likes to hang around a lot. Shoutout to those relatives who like to draw attention to your pimply situation. Oh really? I hadn't noticed that I had two bumps the size of mountains on my forehead. Thanks for letting me know.

Now by all means, I know my acne could be a lot worse but it's really getting me down recently. Note to self: Try not to let your skin get to you. If you have acne, do share your experiences down below and any product recommendations would be awesome.